


The Well-Tempered Cavalier

by Fluxit_Aqua_et_Sanguine



Series: Jared Moore: Violist [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M, Inspired by Music, Inspired by Stupidity, Mental Health Issues, Music, Suicide, Unrequited Love, Written in college
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-05
Updated: 2019-02-05
Packaged: 2019-10-22 14:34:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 7,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17664482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fluxit_Aqua_et_Sanguine/pseuds/Fluxit_Aqua_et_Sanguine
Summary: Jared's back, and he's finally got a job after his incident with the Elgar violin.





	1. Monday, 20 July

**Author's Note:**

> Guys. This one was LITERALLY based off of the fact that I thought Bach's 'Well-Tempered Clavier' was actually called 'Well-Tempered Cavalier' for many, many years.
> 
> Each journal entry is theoretically based off of a different key, as (stopping off for a second to brag intensely) I have perfect pitch, and each note and key has a distinct personality to my mind. Didn't actually mention that in the entries, though, so... it doesn't really matter, I suppose.
> 
> Comments are always loved!

_Monday, 20 July_

This really isn’t an acquaintance I wanted. I mean, I think this—writing about my day, my feelings and so on—is a little self-centered, and, unless I’m to go back and look for patterns in my behavior to correct, I don’t know how it’ll be of any help to me. But my parents insist that there’s something in it. “Cleansing” or some rubbish like that. I don’t remember exactly what they said, when the idea of a journal first came up in conversation. I guess it doesn’t really matter. The point is, I’ve begun writing a diary, and I’m supposed to keep on with it; I promised I would.

The name’s Jared Moore, by the by. Irish. Twenty-something. Possessed of a great love of almond fondant. And this is as good a day as any to start a record of my life, I suppose. It’s bright and beautiful outside, much the opposite of your average Dublin day. I’ve also come into a job for the first time since I left University. (Thank the Lord for that!) You see, I’ve had some trouble because of a mistake I made back during my schooling, but I think most everyone’s forgotten enough that it doesn’t matter anymore. That’s the only way I could’ve gotten this job, after all. A few months ago, I was being turned down for all sorts of orchestra positions because of what I did.  When I was at University—Cambridge, you know, the best—my professor asked me to bring his violin to the grave of Edward Elgar for a ceremonial performance. It was to be the signal honor of my life. So, naturally, I forgot the thing on the train when I got off at Worcestershire. When the train came back around, an old man off the street was sitting there with the violin, just playing it, like it was his own. What mattered was that he played the most beautiful of Elgar’s pieces, his “Salut d’Amour,” and I knew, then, that I couldn’t take the violin back. I and the old man would do well for it; I was determined that, with this gift, music would improve both of our souls.

Naturally, the English were furious, in their hilarious, degrading manner. The papers posted wonderfully alliterated headlines about my irresponsibility, and, after that, I couldn’t find work in England. I could hardly manage a solo at school anymore after the incident. You can’t really do anything about the sort of bias that follows accidents, I suppose—you just have to move on, and work harder in the future.

The point here is that I’ve now got an occupation, a fair one. It gives me a little promise, which I didn’t have anywhere at home. I’ve been asked to play in an orchestra. I suppose I should’ve said before—for posterity, you know, and all the descending ages that will revere this text—I’m a viola player. The off-beat, art nouveau sort, of course, carrying around his philistine cousin of the violin, playing maple-flavored syrup to the violin’s spun-sugar notes. But I prefer it that way. I did go to University to play the viola, and music’s the real love of my life. I’m glad to be back with my art, and out of the trap of home. I feel free, independent again after being caged by doubt and my past.

It was surprisingly easy to be accepted for the music program I’ve started in. Before playing, they asked me a bunch of questions about my health and so on, and various things concerning my ‘stress levels.’ I think they said it was something to do with reliability, which I can understand. A place like this that gives people free room and board must have to be sure its investments are worthwhile. The place I’m playing for is a budding organization in Dublin, and, to get in, I played a curious little arrangement of Bach’s _Prelude in C Major_. It’s an airy, sweet thing that rambles away your time. I think of it like a few moments walking alone on a day like today, when everything’s moving forward with a slow grace. I’m glad it’s what got me into the orchestra. Sweetness is the best way I can think to begin my career as a musician, with all the unpleasantness I had to deal with before.


	2. Sunday, 26 July

_Sunday, 26 July_

I didn’t tell you that I had to move, did I? For me to come to this orchestra—St. Brendan’s, or whatever it’s called, I don’t really remember—I had to move away from home to this place. I had to pack up my things, just some clothes, toiletries, and my viola, and move out here to Dublin. The place is all white linoleum and fluorescent lights that are always buzzing low, discordant notes; I feel like I have to wade through the thick scent of I don’t know what, a chemical, maybe, that pervades the air. And no-one has the time to talk to you. One would think that a common area like the one outside my apartment would be used for friendly conversation and meeting people, but no. At least at home my parents were usually there to discuss things with me, and I had some real quiet, without any of the white noise or the people driving their heels into the tiled floor at all hours of the day and night.

Sometimes I think that the people here don’t care to talk to me because they know my name. ‘Jared Moore’ _was_ an infamous name in Ireland and England alike for a while… but, really, why should my past follow me as far as this? I’ve got a job; made myself a respectable man again. They can’t know everything. I don’t even know if they’re aware of anything at all. But the lack of friends really makes a man feel like he has nothing. What is there but belonging, after all? I do have _one_ decent acquaintance, a talkative older fellow called Mister Jacobson, but he doesn’t get out much, and, besides, he always wants to talk about how I’m feeling, and I don’t really go in for that sort of thing. When Mister Jacobson _does_ get out, I’ve seen him go out through some heavy metal doors (that are locked to me) with a clipboard in his hands. I find that clipboard a strange affectation in an old man.

We haven’t started actually playing in the orchestra yet, as I’m still settling in, and I imagine the rest of the players are, too, if they’ve come here at all. My wing is awfully devoid of the natural sounds of people. I hope that I’m able to find someone friendly when we begin making music together. Someone else who really loves the music, anyway. I think—I hope—that I can be guaranteed that. It’s pathetic to sit alone most of the day and resort to writing here because no-one will talk to me. I thought that this diary-writing was egocentric before, and now I think it’s a poor substitute for a person’s ear.

I don’t think there’s any more to be said today.


	3. Thursday, 30 July

_Thursday, 30 July_

I knew it! I _knew_ that they didn’t like me because of that God-damned incident with the God-damned violin when I was at University. That’s why they all rush on by when I try to talk, or else don’t respond at all. They’re trying to ignore me. I bet they’d feel shamed if they even started a discussion with me.

I know it because I was talking to Mister Jacobson today, and he mentioned something about it to me. I remember it all, along with the smug smirk twisting his loose wrinkle of a face when he said it. We were talking about how the orchestra hadn’t started up yet, and he started croaking out a laugh, and sneered at me, “They can’t have a troublemaker like you have his music too early—you’d probably just lose it!”

‘Just _lose_ it’! I couldn’t believe he’d go about bringing that up, right when I’m going to start this new passage of my life; right when I need to be forgetting about the mistakes I made at school. Jacobson’s a bastard. I don’t want to talk to him anymore. I said as much when I left his room, but he said he _‘knew I’d be back.’_ What a bastard!

I don’t know what I can do about everyone judging me, though. What can you say, when you’ve been made an anathema before people who probably don’t even know everything? They couldn’t. You can’t reason with them, either—they hardly even say ‘good morning’, much less hear you out about the circumstances under which you lost the famed Elgar violin. I really regret what I did, now. Letting that old codger keep the violin, I mean. I thought I was doing something good for the world as well as ‘the soul’, letting a poor old guy who knew some music have the thing, and look where I am now! Living in an apartment with no-one who will begin to associate themselves with me. The ‘soul’ can go hang as long as you have some kind of decent company about you. I bet that old vagabond just sold the violin as soon as he got back to London, anyway.

If nothing else I’ve the company of music.  I wasn’t allowed to bring my MP3 player here—it’s one of those weird ‘green’ places that doesn’t want technology beyond the electric lights—but at least I’ve the music in my head. Maybe it’s strange, but I find it beautiful: Carrying around the perfect orchestra and soloists around with me in my mind, always. The tunes change occasionally, but have been present with me ever since I left University, and they’re really the perfect companion. It’s been Beethoven’s piano sonata in C-sharp minor, “Moonlight,” of late. I always wondered that something so repetitive and contemplative, something with such dark, straining chords was meant to be the musical representation of moonlight—that pure, silver stream flowing through the black night air. I think it’s much closer to an obsessive reflection, like looking into a mirror in a darkened room after being told that your face has been disfigured: Staring, going over the same, tortured lines with only slightly altered moods and increased desperation, until the final chord falls restlessly through the spirit.

Playing my viola again should make things better, but there’s yet no final word on the orchestra, and I’ve never seen anyone else with an instrument. Just men and women in white racing around without a mind to talk to me. Given the fact that I’m staying here without charge, I figured that this must be a building for musicians, and other people playing in the orchestra. Since no-one else has come yet, I’m starting to wonder if this isn’t some elaborate scheme by my mother to get me out of the house and doing something productive again.


	4. Monday, 3 August

_Monday, 3 August_

I’ve a special occasion for writing early today—it’s brilliant. Perfectly brilliant. I don’t know that I believe it yet, or if anything beyond our acquaintance is possible. Well, I’ve not said what it is yet, have I? Got to start at the beginning, as they say.

We started playing in the orchestra today. Well, when I say ‘orchestra’, it’s just the pair of us for now, but more are supposed to come, I’m sure. So far we’ve just been playing around a little, trying parts from pieces we both know together. But that’s not the really exciting bit. I’m glad to be playing again, yes, but there’s so much more.

The woman who plays with me—the violin player who’s going to be in the orchestra, too—is the loveliest girl I’ve ever met. Her voice’s just like her playing: Lilting, rolling gently like waves off the white beaches near my home town on the East coast. I can just imagine putting a shell to my ear and hearing her whispering through it. She’s the epitome of natural Irish beauty, in every way. She has dark brown eyes like polished obsidian, and cascading curls of hair the color of cinnamon sugar, and plays with the most delicacy I’ve ever heard. She’s nothing like the screaming prima donnas in Secondary school and University who were always trying to out-play someone else, making their violins squeal in pain. Finally, I’ve come to meet someone else who’s a real artist, who cares for the beauty of the music above the ego.

I think she’s a really charming person, too. She tells me that she spends much of her time as a nurse, but likes to play as a hobby on the side. Her technique isn’t perfect, so I don’t imagine she’ll be the first violin when we finally get the orchestra together, but there’s something about her that makes the flaws charming. She smiles apologetically and laughs a bit when she misses a skip or plays her vibrato too fast, graceful even around her mistakes. Her name is Shealeigh, perfectly enough. Everything, from the way she doesn’t make up her light, freckled face to her modest dress in a long skirt and light, airy sort of blouse with trailing sleeves, is just right. I wonder if she’s not a fairy of some kind. Maybe the lost muse of harmony, or some other such thing.

When we weren’t playing today, we talked of this and that. It was mostly music-related, of course. I found out that she’s a devotee of Beethoven, and that the Ninth Symphony is her favourite. We went on to play the final movement together for a little while, that charming little duet with the melody and a countermelody that happens shortly before the choir would come in. That piece really summed up the day for me: The innocence of a young poet and the divine fire of a tortured artist, all about the love of heartening music and friendship surging, triumphant, past loneliness and music alone, which is nothing without those with whom to share it. Frankly, I’m just glad to have someone to talk to, and someone who—finally!—doesn’t seem to know anything about my past. I just have to hope it stays that way.


	5. Monday, 10 August

_Monday, 10 August_

Well, things have been going in life. Moving forward without moving anywhere of interest.

Since the first day playing together, Shealeigh and I have been doing basically nothing as a duet. Flirting around with trying a couple pieces together, yes, but that’s about it. Take yesterday: We’d started on a bit of a canon, on the melody of “O, My Luve’s Like a Red, Red Rose”.  I knew I was grinning like an idiot, because that’s one of my favorite airs; however, when she leaned down and tried to catch my eye, I was a bit taken aback.

“You’re smiling,” she observed with a grin of her own, and sat up, looking at me with those wide, dark eyes. She expected me to say something, but I could only shrug, and reply,

“Yeah… I like that piece.” She seemed weirdly delighted by my lukewarm comment.

“Oh, that’s _wonderful_ , Jared! How do you feel when you play that sort of music?” Again, she waited for an answer, and again, I only felt that I wanted to keep playing.

She pressed the issue, though, with gentle prodding: “Is it the style you like? Or the way the melody’s constructed?” And eventually got me to explain how I appreciate music based on folk melodies and Celtic playing techniques.

She does that kind of thing a lot. Going over all sentimental like Mr. Jacobson and wanting to talk about how I ‘ _feel’_ , and what I like in this line of music or that harmony. I didn’t think I’d be returned to the roundabout talk of an insipid old man when she and I began playing again. Like any other orchestra, I assumed that we were being employed to play beautiful music for those who would listen, and to perfect and give life to the work of geniuses. All this talk about myself makes me sick. What does it matter? Yes, I love a good piece of music; yes, playing the viola makes me ‘happy’. Who cares about _that?_ Music is humble—it’s never utterly one’s own. Either you’re performing the work that proves the greatness of someone else, or you’re allowing another to interpret and discover your music through their image. Even if one happens to be playing one’s own work, as in all art, a large measure of success is in what the audience’s perception is. This is no arena in which to be discussing how I ‘feel today’, and ask whether or not I’ve been keeping on with my bloody diary.

The best I can say for this week is that I’ve resolved to try to charm Shealeigh. Now, I know that that’s not the simplest idea, since I’ve never really dated before, but I have to. Though she’s sometimes rather dewy-eyed, she’s still obviously a lover of music just like I am. Plus, I’ve reason to believe that she may share my feelings, at least a bit. She’s always asking after me. I know because I heard her talking to Mister Jacobson just yesterday, when I was going to lunch. (I’m having a terrible time of trying to quit smoking, you see, and the cafeteria’s really the only distraction I have, since I can’t get outside for a cigarette.)

They were chatting outside of Mister Jacobson’s room. Now, I’m not an eavesdropper, mind—I’m as respectful as the next man about private conversation—but mention of my name caught my ear to the point that I couldn’t just leave, particularly because my name was intoned in Shealeigh’s voice.

“Jared’s talking about our playing as a duet in the future,” Shealeigh said, in an odd sort of way, firmer than what I was used to hearing from her normally musical mouth. She said something more, but I couldn’t hear her terribly well. Sneaking around behind corners isn’t the best way to hear people properly. “We’ve been playing a little; I think he really enjoys the company.” Mister Jacobson began that low humming older men like to when they want to interrupt someone with a gem of insight.

“Well he should. The boy is very musical,” he rumbled. “I’m glad that you’re playing with him. I think it really helps.” _‘Helps?’_ I still don’t know what he meant by that.

“Does he talk very much about our playing?”

“Oh, yes—I think he holds you in very high regard,” Jacobson laughed, and I stopped listening to them, then. I can’t _believe_ Mister Jacobson! He thinks everything I do is something frivolous, in the manner of my losing the violin. To think I felt guilty about listening to them! Still, it showed how well Shealeigh cared for me, talking to my only (almost) friend in the building about what we’re doing. It’s very kind of her.

When I asked Mister Jacobson about their conversation, he told me that they were just looking on my progress. I guess it makes sense. I mean, even though I passed the audition, we have to get some music down before the rest of the players arrive. (I don’t know how Mister Jacobson knows the conductor, but he must be passing on information through to him somehow.)

Though Shealeigh’s persistence in talking solely about me is distracting, she obviously cares, since she wants to talk about me and my thoughts. And she smiles at me in the kindest way. No other girl’s been like that before. I think she and I must be made for, or, at least, are just right for each other.

Now I’ve just got to figure out how to broach the subject of romance.


	6. Saturday, 15 August

_Saturday, 15 August_

How to begin, how to begin? Everything’s just been so… well.

Starting this entry over: I’ve been getting somewhere in life! I always thought that I’d do it in University—take control, the reins, what have you—but that never really happened. I just learned a bit more about music and how to ply my trade as a musician. But now I’m really moving up!

For one thing, Mister Jacobson told me today that he’s passing on a piece of solo music to work on, to actually perform! It’s lovely, a bit from the Bartok Viola Concerto. I must’ve proved myself with my progress thus far if I’m getting such great music so soon, and it’ll really show all those orchestras that rejected me just out of school. Now they’re missing all the artistry they could’ve had if they had seen past their prejudices to the thing of importance, the music. I can’t wait to be a real soloist again. When I can finally show myself as a professional—go out on my own, earn some money with my playing—then my mother can finally return to work, too. (She stopped her tailoring to help me find a job, see, but I know she misses it—it’d be great to be able to think I’m not holding my parents down for the first time in twenty-three years.)

Perhaps better than all that, though that’s pretty grand, is that I’ve started my path, going on the way to wooing Shealeigh as I was imagining I would. I’m going to teach myself something great for her, and present it to her as my gift and ‘overture,’ as it were. I think it’s just the sort of thing to give a lady who’s enamored of music. Certainly I’d adore someone learning something for me. There’s an artistic beauty in intention, certainly, as much as there is in the piece itself. I bet Shealeigh can appreciate it. Being a nurse, she’s got to be a smart girl as well as a creative one.

I’ve chosen Elgar’s “Salut d’Amour.” I know that’s strange—well, it feels strange, since that’s the piece that God-damned tramp was playing on the train when I let him have the violin—but I still find the melody to be perfectly soulful. It makes strings and men weep, and is just the thing for an emotional girl to take the hint. She’ll see all that I see when I play the piece, the lights and the colors in chords and all the love poured into that magnificent music, and, after all this time, I’ll have found someone who understands and sees just like I do, all the gentle magic of love.


	7. Thursday, 20 August

_Thursday, 20 August_

She’s going to adore this. I know it. I’ve been working so hard, and the results just create the most perfect bit of art that I’ve ever experienced. It’s a white rose, a beauteous white rose that will bloom every time I set my bow down on the strings. I know it’s just right, and the music will sit on her hair like a flower, and I know the love she has will come out to me. She will. I’m quite sure that she will.

Shealeigh cares for me more, too. I see it, and she’s willingly shown it to me. She asked if we could eat together at luncheon the other day, and we went to the bright, barely-blue cafeteria that always seems to have the fatty stench of old ground beef, no matter what’s on the menu. I really miss a good takeaway or a pizza, but I’m not supposed to leave the apartment complex, and, besides, they like us to be on a relatively healthy diet here. It’s something about the intensity of preparing for a great musical collaboration that keeps us here all the time, rather like those country-wide orchestra camps that some people in my school used to talk about attending.

That day they were serving a Shepherd’s pie with water and a spongy square of spice cake with toothpaste-white frosting. When we found a table, Shealeigh passed me one of her little smiles over it and spoke. I couldn’t hear her, though, over the noise of the man strapped into a wheelchair a table away from me. He was a visitor to one of my neighbors, I think; whatever the case, the moans he made left a filthy taste in my mouth. I didn’t ask him to stop, though, as it seemed rude. Luckily Shealeigh drew my attention back to her with a touch of her hand to mine, diluting that rotten flavor with her gentle sweetness.

“Why do you love music so much?” She asked, taking her hand away slowly. I laughed a little, for she had such a long answer coming to her that I don’t imagine she expected. I told her about it all: How my Dad used to play Rachmaninoff records when I was a baby, and how my Mother once dabbled in the cello. I told her about how I came to adore the viola and always imagined myself becoming one of the Greats, to play with the Melbourne Symphony or the Trans-Siberian Orchestra as the principle viola.

“And _then_ ,” I said, winding down to a pause for breath, “there’s the sights, and the tastes.” Shealeigh knit her pretty brow for a moment, and asked me what I meant.

“Oh, you know… the way the music _feels_. The colors that are woven into it, and the way some works taste just _so_ , like nothing you can eat… music provides such a wealth of beauty for every sense. It’s great, isn’t it?”

Shealeigh didn’t really look like she thought it was ‘great’, but, then, she did say she agreed with me, even though she never looked into my eyes. “Yes, Jared, it’s all quite beautiful….”

We didn’t talk much after that, and she left within a few moments, saying that the Shepherd’s pie had been too much for her. Even so, the part of a lunch we had together was just the thing. A ‘bonding’ experience, if you like, though it’s not a term I’d generally employ. I could see—from the way she fetched me some pie to the questioning about my greatest loves—that she feels as I do. It’s a lovely feeling, rivaling even the warmth of a Vaughn-Williams symphony.

Now, I’ve just got to play my gift of music a little more. Play it and find the color of the air to be the most brilliant rose-white about my music before I can give it to her. Then it will be just perfect, sitting just _so_ , the way she does when she plays her violin. I’ll show her that there’s so much more than just the violin and just music—there’s a million more kinds of art and sweetness and vivacity to be had, when one works at it, than there is simply by playing in an orchestra.

I’m so glad to have been sent to play just with her. _Shealeigh._ How beauteous our love is!


	8. Monday, 24 August

_Monday, 24 August_

I don’t want to write. No. But they keep talking about it, keep saying I’ll be better. I can’t stop them talking, and this is all I can do, to try to act against them. I don’t want to. _Why_ do I have to write? I’ve never seen anyone else having to carry around a journal with them. A few people—loud people—have moved into rooms near to my own. They never write. They never talk, either. More prejudiced bastards. _And_ they don’t have to write. They’re not called to feel every moment of every day twice over with twice the emotion. That punishment’s reserved for me.

I’ll say that nothing good’s happened. No. Nothing good at all. No more string players are coming. No real music’s being made.

_Feeling!_ Ever the watch-word around here. Feeling, or else thinking or worrying. Ridiculous. So far away from music, art and beauty. Nothing good. Not one thing.

I gave my gift the other day. The air I was spinning for my darling nymph-muse, to color her with such loveliness and to make her _see_ , see how much I want to give her and how much love I and my music have for her. We were both smiling when we began to start playing together. I remember what I said: “I want to play this for you.” It was my declarations, to show my intentions. I prefer clarity, since I’ve never done something like this before.

It wasn’t in our normal room. You can see the musical colors better in natural light. So we stepped into the little sun-room, the one with the big windows that flood in light from every angle. We had to stand close. Her sea-sighs touched my face. There was warmth. I played, and the silvery, clouded sunlight tempered my music such that it made the air more heartrending than ever before. Beyond perfection. The highest ring of the beautiful. Striking music, like a fragment of smoked glass. I was sure she’d love me with it. There were rivulets, white water and air flowing around my strings and my beloved Shealeigh as I performed for her. It made the world that much closer to real resplendence. It was all a scene in silver and blue-white light; it brought out my love’s warm, gingery hair, and her dark eyes shone like a bit of brown sea glass. She seemed to me to be all that is good in nature and in the glorious souls of mankind, standing there watching me, all the world focused upon the music.

It finished quickly. Most exhilarating things do. We were staring at one another when it was over. Tree-bark, green-and-brown hazel into varnished ebony. It lasted far longer than my music; a veritable age. Many went by. Then she was smiling, and clapping. Confusingly. Love is supposed to be sweeping declarations, embraces and kisses, not bloody _clapping._

“That was lovely, Jared!” Her voice gushed, pale and sweet; cloying and sickening. “Did you learn that all yourself? That’s really great. Thank-you for sharing it with me. Shall we go back into the activity room?” She smiled again—that terrible, frothy smile!—and floated out ahead of me. She mocked me, with every step. Nothing. She didn’t love me; she is no artist like I thought. She doesn’t see, and is just as blind and judging as everyone else, as Mr. Jacobson or the people who live beside me. She’s nothing. I didn’t realize it then, though. I was still trailing helplessly after her. Practically whimpering like some pathetic newborn animal whose mother’s gone off to feed. The heart sounded hollowly and the body felt somehow constricted and unbalanced in the same moment.

“Where are you going?” I cried after her; tears pressed hotly up against the bottoms of my eyes. She didn’t hear me. I was lost.

I don’t know what happened after that. I certainly don’t want to say anything of it here. The shadows of recollection and the gauze wrapped around my upper arm and hand are enough, I think. I know I don’t want to be here anymore. I’d really like to leave.


	9. Thursday, 26 August

_Thursday, 26 August_

They all know what I’ve done. I don’t know how they found out—I’ve been so careful never to talk about it, never to mention a word about the lost violin to anybody. Maybe that tramp works here. That old man who took the violin from me. It was probably all a test of my sanity. Yes. I see it. They wanted to know if I could handle something like this, if I could hold up under the pressure of being an emissary for my college to something important and bigger than myself, and I failed. I wanted to be good to that poor-looking guy, that _bastard_ , who took the violin. He probably has a wing in some huge psychological practise named after him and bucket-loads of money. He went to them, my teachers, my parents, my doctor, and told them what I did wrong.

So they stuck me here, in this solitary madhouse, to teach me a lesson; they’ve had me writing for their amusement. You _have_ been doing that, haven’t you? I’m sure of it, now. You wouldn’t have kept prodding me about my feelings if you weren’t; you wanted to rile me up, to make me write all about my loves and my frustrations so you could go back to your offices and have a good laugh about the mysteries of behaviour.

You must have done. After all, I’ve started seeing the signs, all the signs that I’m in some mental ward: The gauze, the syringes, the sharp stink of alcohol… the people in their silence… they’re either utterly mad or they’re an attendant charged to keep me here, to force me to stay in this rancid Hell forever.

You want me to be sorry for what I did. I see that, now. You cut me off from my family and everyone who cared a whit to punish me for my forgetfulness.

I suppose that you’ll want to know why I know all of this, right? All of you reading my diary, this thing you’ve been using to analyse me. You should know already. But still, I want to tell you. I shan’t be called ignorant. You may laugh at me for all of the traps you lured me into, but at least I know now. And I will have _you_ know.

You had Shealeigh talking to Mister Jacobson again. You asked them to stand down the hall from my room, and knew me well enough to see that I’d have to listen. After all, you know that I’ve done it before.

Then you had them talk. You had them talking about me and other people; you showed everything, then:

“I think he’s been more distant lately. Jared, I mean. There’s something off with him. I think we’ll have to consider putting him on a course of apiprazedole despite his father’s position on drugs.”

“Don’t you think that that’s a bit much?” Shealeigh’s voice! But so grounded. My muse sounded like she’d had her wings clipped, talking that way. “Dr. Moore is bound to object. Besides, I think he’s doing all right. There appear to be some hallucinations, granted, but he doesn’t seem… _disturbed_.”

“Perhaps, but he’s been so quiet when I’ve spoken to him, late. That’s worrying. The boy needs to communicate more if he’s going to improve. Now, what were you going to say about Miss Johnson?”

“Well, Doctor….”

They walked away, then. Perfect I know—you train them well. Telling me just enough that I can realize; making them go so that they could have me think about it all, and finally know why I’m here. They—you—probably find it very amusing. You’re shocked it took me as long as this, you, who know all, while I know nothing.

You wanted me to write this, didn’t you? My God, that’s _all_ you want, isn’t it, you damned psychologists, treating me like a lab rat, like something you can cut open and observe; something you can record in numbers and succinct conclusions on a graph. I won’t let you. I’m going to leave this place.

The mirror in my room has been cracked since the other day, after I played for Shealeigh. I know how to get away from you. You’ll see. I won’t let you observe me anymore.


	10. Assessment

**Friday, 17 July**

St. Brendan’s Hospital, Grangegorman

Assessor: Dr. James Jacobson, PhD, MD

Patient Name: Jared Douglas Moore

Gender: M

DOB: 27 March 1986

Height: 5’9”

Weight: 66.6 Kilograms

General Symptoms/Prognosis:

Patient shows a great deal of anxiety following a panic attack approximately two months ago. Admitted by parents for fear of his harming himself or others.  


Diagnosis:

Anxiety disorder suspected, but not confirmed upon arrival at St. Brendan’s. Mild symptoms of schizophrenia—some hallucinations, delusions, irritability and loose associations present, but not worrying as of this point. Suspected to have arisen from the patient’s overwhelming sense of and obsession with failure in his professional life.  
  


Treatment:

Keep patient under psychiatric observation and restrict interaction, as anxiety in the patient has been consistently linked with social situations in his past. Creative stimulation essential. Keep patient off medication for as long as possible at the urging of pediatric specialist Dr. Moore, the patient’s father.


	11. Epilogue

_Friday, 27 August_

I came to know Jared Moore when we started playing our strings together, but had heard about him before, from his parents. I thought he was an interesting young man, with varied talents. Most notable was his love for music, which seemed to inform everything about him, even when I was just beginning to talk with the Moores.

They were very charming people, the Moores. Doctor Moore was—and still is—a great pediatrician, a tall, pale and consistently professional man in an old-fashioned brown suit and waistcoat. Jared’s mother was of a whimsical personality, on the other hand, a slender and dreamy South African lady with an impossibly long braid of deepest brown hair. That must be where Jared got it from, the hair and the whimsy, I mean. When we met, they told me that Jared was a musician. They said he wasn’t the best, but that he’d been, at least, good enough to get by in school. He couldn’t manage to get by professionally, though, and it was causing him such distress that he was beginning to show some deeply paranoid symptoms.

They’d decided that it would be beneficial to have Jared stay at the hospital for some time owing to a nervous breakdown he had suffered two weeks prior, which caused him to express suicidal thoughts and intentions. Doctor Moore was anxious that his son not be put on any psychoactive medication. Since he’s a man of some repute, and he expressed a desire to keep his son from dependence as long as possible, we agreed to his wishes.

 At that, Doctor Jacobson—the psychiatrist in charge—decided that keeping Jared here at St. Brendan’s would be the best decision, because of his fragile state of mind and desperation to play his instrument again. So, we set up rooms for him.

I still don’t know what Jared’s parents told him, about being sent here. He never really seemed to understand what was going on, even up until the end. He always spoke like we were just friends. I recall when we used to play together sometimes, and just talk about music… he never really seemed to think of me as a nurse. I suppose I know why, now. I suppose I also should’ve told Doctor Jacobson more about Jared’s obsessiveness, but his loves really did look like earnest passions, from where I sat.

I never knew the extent of the obsession until we read his diary, and he wrote of an incident losing a violin at his college. I never would have guessed—I certainly wouldn’t have suspected that Jared would commit suicide over something he’d never once mentioned to me. He’d got caught up in a paranoid delusion, and ended it all before we could even begin to help.

That’s the worst bit about it, you know. He was such a sweet boy. I’ve rarely been doted on the way Jared doted on me, and I didn’t even see it for what it was…. If I’d just said something, just asked him what he meant, about ‘giving me a gift’….

They found him this morning in the washroom adjoining his bedroom. At that point, it was entirely baffling. Jared had seemed so ardent with his music during the week, and even spoke to me more, which felt like an improvement. If I’d just spoken up about his hallucinations earlier, or we’d just read his diary, maybe we could’ve stopped this. Doctor Jacobson expressed the need to prevent paranoia by refraining from reading patient writings, though now it seems we managed to increase it, somehow.

I can’t believe that it’s happened, really. Jared was a strange sort, maybe. He was excitable when it came to certain things, and didn’t seem to have much regard for anything else, but I’ve had boyfriends in the past with the same attitude. At least his passion was for an art, something beautiful, and something I could relate to with him. I think we were really friends, by the end. Though, I’d never thought as deeply of him as he seemed to think about me.

Jared was a _bit_ of a charmer. He had a good face, the finished work of an interesting bi-racial sculptor from his Irish and African heritage: A middling-dark complexion, with Missus Moore’s wavy  brown hair, high cheeks, an English aristocrat’s pointed nose, and eager hazel eyes like sandstone flecked with moss. If he’d had something more to him, some more consciousness about him… maybe there could have even been something. I don’t know. I never will, now.

I really feel like it’s my fault. Doctor Jacobson tells me that it was the fault of all of us, and the fact that we weren’t communicating enough all the way through. He says we’re going to have to start reading patients’ journals in the future to ‘look into their heads a bit more’. He doesn’t want another accident like the one with Jared. I hate the clinical way he talks about it, though:

“We don’t want any more _liabilities,_ you understand,” Jacobson told me yesterday, in a whisper behind his clipboard shortly after the coroner had arrived to examine Jared’s remains. Jacobson doesn’t even try to hide the fact that it’s all about the hospital’s reputation and his job. I won’t say I agree with Jared’s estimations about the doctor, but one has to wonder about a man’s soul when he says things like that.

I’ll be sending a letter to Jared’s parents in Blackrock. Jacobson’s going to be sending a report of his own, along with a bit of money, but I don’t think that’ll be of much help. At least, not emotionally. (Doctor Jacobson seems awfully dense about matters of feeling, to me.) I want the Moores to know that Jared was a good young man to the last, and how he had been my very good friend for the whole time we knew each other. I only wish there was something more I could do.


End file.
